From DD305 Personal Lives and Social Policy, Book 1, Figure 2.2 page 62.
This line graph shows changes in family size from 1700 to 1925, as described in the text.
Both the "Children born" and "Survivors to age 25" lines show similar trends, rising a little at first then falling, the gap between them narrows with time, more noticeably from about 1860.
Some details are given in the comments following Activity 2.7, the graph is described more fully here.
The horizontal axis is labelled "Year of birth" and is marked in units of 100 years, from 1700 to 1900, with divisions at 25 years.
The y or vertical axis is labelled "Number of children" and is marked in units from 1 to 7, with divisions of half units.
There are two lighter curving lines shown, the top line is labelled "Children born (estimated)", the lower is "Survivors to age 25 (estimated)". Two heavier lines start at about 1830 and are labelled, "Children born (fertility census)" and "Survivors to age 25 (fertility census)". The heavy lines are straight and join census points at about 1840, 1870, 1890 and 1920. The estimated lines join the census lines from a lower value at the 1870 point.
The lighter lines begin about 1710, both level or rising slowly from about 1710 to 1745, then rising to a higher steady level between 1870 and 1835. They then dip slowly to about 1870 then there is a steeper dip to about 1880. At this point the "Survivors to age 25" line starts to rise while the "Children born" is still falling, the gap between the two becomes much smaller.
Estimated values reading from the graph at 25 year intervals:
| Year |
Children born (estimated) |
Children born (census) |
Survivors (estimated) |
Survivors (census) |
| 1725 |
5.0 |
2.8 |
- |
- |
| 1750 |
5.0 |
3.0 |
- |
- |
| 1775 |
6.6 |
3.2 |
- |
- |
| 1800 |
5.6 |
3.5 |
- |
- |
| 1825 |
5.5 |
3.5 |
- |
- |
| 1850 |
5.0 |
3.5 |
5.5 |
3.8 |
| 1875 |
- |
- |
3.9 |
2.8 |
| 1900 |
- |
- |
2.5 |
2.2 |
| 1925 |
- |
- |
2.4 |
2.3 |
